The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
The present disclosure is particularly well adapted for implementation in securing agricultural irrigation systems such as a pivot move system described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,353, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Pivot move systems include a radial arm which traverses a field being irrigated in a circular arc while sprinklers, positioned along the arm, irrigate the field. The pivot arm moves about a center point with the arm extending a significant distance, which can be several thousand feet. At the pivot point, electrical and electronic controls are located, together with a gas generator to power the system.
As illustrated in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,353, wheeled ground engaging assemblies support the radial arm at spaced locations. The wheel speed of each assembly must be synchronized for correspondence because the wheels closer to the pivot rotate at a slower speed than the wheels progressively spaced from the pivot and traverse proportionately smaller distances.
A wiring harness extends the length of the arm and includes lines extending to each of the ground engaging assemblies for powering motors which drive the wheels, lights, water pumps, etc.
Because the irrigation systems are positioned in remote areas without supervision, security systems are employed to guard against vandalism and theft, including theft of the electrical wiring harness.
The wiring harness includes a closed loop to monitor the movement of the wheels for the purpose of shutting down operation in the event a wheel encounters an obstacle and is blocked from rotation.
In order to monitor the wheels, switches are provided adjacent each wheel, with the switch being activated when the wheel encounters an obstacle. All of the monitoring switches are connected in a normally closed monitoring loop.
This is different than previous systems that use phone dialers that simply access cellular or satellite telephone networks for communicating a serial communications protocol that is proprietary to each specific telephone manufacturer and/or cellular telephone carrier. These systems typically require proprietary wireless connectivity or auxiliary communication ports for interfacing with the phones. Specific adapters or other dedicated hardware are therefore often required. These adaptations for current systems result in relatively high implementation and connectivity costs.